The Santa Clara Center for Occupational Health (SCCOSH) and Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) Records, 1978-2002 (bulk
1982-1995), document the history of SCCOSH and SVTC. SCCOSH grew from the efforts of three women's health and labor rights
organizers, Robin Baker, Amanda Hawes, and Pat Lamborn, who had come to focus on the Valley's largely unrepresented working-class
minorities in the late 1970s. SCCOSH organized various campaigns in the fields of workers' rights advocacy and occupational
safety and health training, particularly within the Silicon Valley electronics industries. At the outset, SCCOSH envisioned
itself as representing three constituencies: local labor unions and labor councils, ill and injured workers, and community
residents affected by wildfire industrial development of the Santa Clara Valley since the mid-1970s. The Silicon Valley Toxic
Coalition (SVTC) developed from a SCCOSH project into a wide-ranging, independent nonprofit organization founded by Ted Smith
(1945-), attorney and activist in 1982 in response to the suspicion that leaks at manufacturing sites for IBM and Fairchild
Electronics were causing health issues in nearby Silicon Valley homes. The SVTC is a San José, California-based research and
advocacy group that promotes safe environmental practices in the high tech industry.
The collection of SCCOSH and SVTC consist of administrative files, correspondence, research, publications, official reports,
newspaper clippings, photographs, notes, congressional testimony, and legislative material concerning these organizations
and their mission to reduce toxins and hazardous waste in the Silicon Valley.
This collection is arranged into 15 series: Series I: SCCOSH, Activism, 1976-2002; Series II: SCCOSH, Workplace Hazard Files,
1978-1999; Series III: SCCOSH, Administrative Files, 1978-2001; Series IV: SCCOSH, Legal Case Files, 1980-1998; Series V:
SVTC, Model Hazardous Materials Storage, 1981-1986; Series VI: SVTC, Groundwater Cleanup, 1981-1997; Series VII: SVTC Toxic
Gas Model Ordinance, 1982-1997; Series VIII: SVTC, Administrative Files, 1982-1999; Series IX: SVTC, Founder Ted Smith, 1983-1995;
Series X: SVTC, United Technologies Corporation, 1984-1995; Series XI: SVTC, Toxics Coordinating Project, 1985-1990; Series
XII: SVTC, Tanner Bill, 1986-1991; Series XIII: SVTC, Stanford University/Biotechnology Activism, 1987-1991; Series XIV: SVTC,
Earth Day, 1987-1993; and Series XV: Newspaper Articles, 1987-1997.

Background

The Santa Clara Center for Occupational Health (SCCOSH) grew from the efforts of three women's health and labor rights organizers
- Robin Baker, Amanda Hawes, and Pat Lamborn - who had come to focus on the Silicon Valley's largely unrepresented working-class
minorities in the late 1970s. The three met sometime in 1977 at the Pacific Studies Center in Mountain View, where a small
group had been meeting intermittently to discuss occupational health. Not long after, Baker, Hawes, and Lamborn together applied
for and received a workers training grant from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which they used
to fund the Project on Health and Safety in Electronics (PHASE, 1978-1980).

Extent

27 boxes,
33.25 linear feet

Restrictions

Copyright is assigned to the San José State University Special Collections & Archives. All requests for permission to publish
or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Director of Special Collections. Permission for publication
is given on behalf of the Special Collections & Archives. Copyright restrictions may apply to digital reproductions of the
original materials. Use of digital files is restricted to research and educational purposes.